Rough stretch..
These past few months have been pretty rough on me physically. Since the end of the November, beginning December I’d say, until now have been rough. I remember being sick and missing training bjj somewhat. Then a week later I wrecked my knee and got bad news from my MRI. And so I completely couldnt lift weights anymore, and had to take it easy during training. And I am a guy who likes to go hard always, so its just been so tough. I wouldnt call this even remotely close to being a ow point in my life, but it just sucks.
I had tournaments in mind to do, and I wont be able to do em, because now Docs talking about surgery. *SIGH*
I think though, I still will do the Pan Ams, Worlds, and New York open at the very least. Even if I have to tie a million wraps around my knee to do it, I will.
Happy New Year to everyone. I just had to vent a little. I stil train everyday, BJJ, I just cant squat, and do snatches and clean and jerks like i love to build my programs around..
I was training with Tom Lawlor last Friday, and we were done. So I decided to stick around and watch my training partners teach a class. I end showing an armbar transition, into another armbar. I sit back down on the sideline watching again, this time with a mother and a kid, her son, just watching the class. The mom began to speak to me, in spanish, I speak spanish. So she was telling me how her was contemplating quitting Jiu-Jitsu, and that he had a rough stretch of tournaments as of late, losing in his first match the last 2 or 3 tournaments. She wanted me to speak to her son about not quitting because she had seen me on youtube associated with Tim Burrill, winning matches. So I told him… something like:
“I lost a lot when I first started, I didnt win an IBJJF title until at the very end of blue belt. I had competed in 2 or 3 Pan Ams and Worlds, and lost in all of them right before medal rounds” Then I said.. “but look at me now, this year alone, I won in Abu Dhabi, and I just won a Pan Am, FINALLY”
I then said something like..bjj is a little microcosm of life..your not always going to win, I didnt. But I stuck with it, “I trained everyday relentlessly” til I got it right, and made it right. Keep showing up to practice and listen to your coaches.
Then what does this little guy do?
He comes in today as Im sitting at the front desk, and tells me.. “Hey remember what you told me?” I said yeah man hows training?, and he tells me:
“I beat 5 guys this weekend at the local tournament (NAGA Rhode Island), and I won 2 swords”
Kid made my whole entire year. Kids just light me up!
I love the hell out of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu!
An article about me”Radhames Familia Jr’s Study of Champions”
My good friend, Dan Faggella, interviewed me then wrote this amazing article on me. It’s really cool, and I am really touched by it. Please check out the website at which this article originated on Science of skill.
Besides being an excellent student of the best athletes and grapplers in the world (he probably owns more Jiu Jitsu DVDs and has read more books on the topic than just about anyone I know), Radhames (AKA: “Junior”) Familia is also not a slouch.
Radhames Familia after winning his division in the 2011 ADCC Tournament in Abu Dhabi.
Having first seen grappling through his experiences in Army Combatives, he quickly became fascinated with this kind of “body chess,” and after a little experience with Judo, he came home eager to take the study of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seriously. Having recently won a number of medals and $5,000 in the 2011 ADCC pro trials (in Abu Dhabi, where he fought and defeated the sons of Arab sheiks), Junior now has his heart set on the BJJ Pan Ams and Worlds.
As a high level competitor, he’s a bit out of place in the small state of Rhode Island – which produces almost no other IBJJF competitors. Hence, he must find his inspiration and insight from the best in the world – even if he never gets to meet these heroes in person. The three themes that we spoke of most in our overview of his “study of champions” were: drilling, training, and the mental game of combat sports.
Drilling in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Right off the bat, Junior associates drilling with high level competitors – and essentially believes that through all the evidence and patterns he’s seen with great competitors, people who do not drill do not take competition seriously.
His belief is that to take drilling seriously you have to set the bar where the best competitors in the world set the bar. Through conversations in greats like Caio Terra, other BJJ champions, and world-class wrestlers, Junior sets the bar very high, but its about more than reps.
Drilling can be done in a myriad of ways, and needn’t just be the kind of mindless “going through the motions” that many people make it out to be. On the one hand there needs to be a time for a kind of slower, more exploratory drilling that focuses on refining the nuances of a technique – and on the other hand there needs to be faster (often timed) drilling that focuses on burning perfect technique and clean sequences into muscle memory – something Junior believes most champions do.
Variety in BJJ Training Strategies
In our interview, Junior brought up a point that I thought was particularly fascinating:
In most sports (IE: boxing, soccer, football, wrestling, etc…) , the biggest emphasis of practice is something between a pure technical focus and a pure competitive focus. In BJJ, people usually learn by either learning moves from an instructor, or from rolling live. In the grand scheme, those are two opposite extremes of training – and the BEST schools do activities that exist between these two opposite poles.
Junior refers to Olympic wrestlers and the athletes in the famous BJJ documentary called “Arte Suave” (like Andre Galvao, Rubens Charles, etc…), who do shadow grappling (grappling against an imaginary opponent), drilling of the essential motions of Jiu Jitsu (shrimping, stand-ups, etc…), flow grappling (a kind of light sparring where both partners just flow through positions and hit techniques on one another just to see where they end up and learn about new positions and moves) and other kinds of exercises that aren’t quite as light as learning a technique, and also aren’t quite as hard as competitive sparring.
Junior believes that using plenty of activities between these two extremes is how the best in the world in all sports develop their skills fastest and most sustainably.
Junior battling it out in another BJJ absolute division.
The ‘Mental Game’ of Combat Sports
Of everything that Junior has learned from wrestling and from the world’s best wrestlers, he says that far and above the aspect of ‘mental toughness’ is what stands out the most as a key factor in success (and he’s memorized a surprising number of their best quotes). There are a few key themes that came up time and time again in our conversation:
A) Taking the Harder Path
Henry Cejudo (US gold medalist in wrestling at the 2008 Beijing Olympics) says that we need to always do things we don’t want to do because this translates to the mentality we need on the mat.
Junior told me some crazy stories about how hard the best wrestlers would practice, and that often they may have crossed into the domain of “overtraining” and yielded less physical benefit from workouts because of it – but that the mentality developed from pushing through pain and agony time and time again - the mentality of choosing the harder path and taking it – proved more valuable on the mats than anything else.
Hence, Junior goes for runs in the early morning (a-la Rocky Balboa) not because he gets any more fitness benefit in the early hours, but because its just harder to do. He tells stories of world-class wrestlers running themselves into the ground in practices only describable and “mind-numbing,” then taking painfully cold showers in ice water without flinching. He believes that if Jiu Jitsu athletes trained this hard, the sport would reach another level entirely.
B) Setting Rigid and High Standards
Cael Sanderson says “You have to live every day like a champion.” Lee Kemp asks himself “Will this take me closer to, or farther away from being a chamion?” before he eats anything. The best in the world have less off-days… or even less “off-moments,” than their peers.
Its about finding a game plan and holding to it with religious fervor, never allowing the all-important little details of diet, sleep, and quality training slip away for even one minute. Most people are incapable of doing this.
C) Going Above and Beyond the Competition
Terry Brands once said something like “The difference between 1st and 2nd is doing something every day that your competition isn’t doing.”
It could be twenty extra reps of a takedown, it could be another round of calisthenics, it could be a morning drilling session. Whatever it is, it should go beyond what anyone in your division is even thinking about doing.
The important lesson that Junior learned from wrestling is that not only will this kind of practice yeild physical and mental toughness benefits, it also makes a competitor feel more worthy of victory – feel more deserving of the gold - which is an extremely important kind of mental attitude at the highest level of competition.
The athlete who knows he has worked harder than his opponent’s keeps this in the back of his mind and carries it into every match.
Life…(rant)
I am..kind of stuck on this huge decision in my life. Life is beautiful for me because of jiu-jitsu. I just want to earn everything, and show my worth, and acomplish my goals. I don’t want to step on toes, and hurt anyone other then my opponents feelings, doing all of this. Believe me, this year, here, right now, it’s only the beginning, I believe that this isn’t even %10 of what I am capable of.
This year is about earning it, and showing my hard work.
Life and BJJ
This weekend brought out a side of me I had not seen of my self since my deployment to Iraq in 2005-2006. I was very upset with someone this weekend. I am usually very happy go lucky, ” im going to be a world champ if it breaks me” kind of attitude, I feel like I am always on top of the world thanks to the glory and greatness that is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I allowed someone to influence me in a way where I wasn’t looking ahead at my goals. I feel like I let someone bring me way down. Abu Dhabi Pro Gi trials are right there, two weeks away.
What I’m saying is one of my most oldest relationships ended, and I’m not talking about a women, I am talking about a best friend. This has shaken me to the core, I’m not sad, I am angry, that I let it come to this. That I wasn’t a better enough person to stop things from getting to a point where its almost irreparable. I feel betrayed. I can’t say this won’t happen again, but I feel this important enough to document to understand why things will happen the way they will happen as my BJJ season kicks off with the Abu Dhabi Trials nearing. This is my journal and I acknowledge that I let myself be taken astray, I will be stronger because of this.
“When you crumple up a paper it can’t be perfect again”
On another note. It’s almost time to go and fight. I have been waiting for this for a long time!
My game for eating right and earning it
How are you sure that you deserve anything as far as competition is concerned? One way of thinking I totally agree with, is Tom Brands way of thinking, who is currently the head wrestling coach for Iowa Hawkeyes, one of the greatest teams ever, period. He goes to say, “You dont deserve anything, you only deserve what you earn!”
These words have had a profound effect in how I approach a lot of things, and truthfully I wish I had this kind of approach on my University studies, haha, but that is another post. So how do you know you deserve a victory or a gold medal at a tournament? Is there anyway to know? Of course, training hard, putting in effort, time, and energy. But every I feel as though everyone trains hard, rolls hard, does their sprints, so how do you know? More importantly how do I know? The honest answer is to live everyday like a champion. How do I know how a champion lives? I read, and read more, not about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighters, because BJJ fighters just aren’t that chronicled, I have somewhat of an idea how my favorite fighters Terere, and Jacare have trained, but I don’t know their habits, what they do on a daily basis, and how they approach important things like drilling, strength and conditioning, mental preparation as it relates to getting ready for huge events. So I instead read about, NCAA wrestling champions, Olympic gold medalist in any sport such as Judo, and whomever else has to go through hell fire and brimstone to prepare for huge events, huge tournaments. And what I have found, and what I like best is Cael Sanderson’s suggestion of “living every single day like a champion”. When I read that, I knew at the time I was not doing the best I could and a lot of the details he was speaking about, which a lot was about my attitude towards preparing and just doing everything in our power to ensure we get the results we want. Since reading about Cael, I know that I have to prepare more, and do more, and after that do a little bit more. And what I have found is this game I made up out of no where for myself…
Everyday that I practice, I do a mini circuit after training, regardless of how I feel, and if I have done conditioning and strength that day. The circuits must include at least 3 of the following.If you want to play along, you can have your own exercises, these are some of Cael’s favorites and mine, and are the best for a grappler.
- Sprints
- Rope climbs
- Pull-ups
- Wall-sits
- Push-ups
- Planks or get on the roller thing
This part of the game is the MORE aspect of my training, just a little more of this, and I always feel like I could of done more, and when I do this after a training, I feel like I have done really well.
The other thing I am doing is 50 pullups after every practice, regardless of anything I have done previously, I will try and do the pullups in the circuit or if not (my gym does not have a pull-up station at the moment) I will do them at home on my doorway pull-up thingy.
The other game I am playing is that I DO NOT GET TO EAT UNTIL I HAVE COMPLETED THESE “MORE” CIRCUITS! This builds upon my discpline, to finish any and all tasks, and to make sure I am doing right by me, and not cheating myself, I am sooooo sure that Every champion I admire has not cut any corners, and neither will I. Dan Gable said it best, “if you don’t train, you don’t eat”. A little extreme for most people, but I have to maintain a certain weight, and Gable said this to his athletes on the off-season when they werent training and wrestling like they were during the on-season.
This is how I will earn GOLD at the 2011 BJJ World Championships, everyday I will earn gold, not 8 weeks out not 12 weeks out, but every second of everyday I will try my heart out to get .01 percent better.I am not in a big BJJ scene in Rhode Island, but who cares, I am going to work…
In closing, it is my belief that if you aren’t doing it everyday and your opponent has done more days more hours, minutes seconds then you, then you do not deserve that victory. This is about accountability and discipline Do you think you deserve and why?
I will continue to try and pay the price everyday…The idea is to never get tired.
**In other news**
Today I weighed 200lbs, already on weight for my division lol, and my roommate told me my abs are beginning to show after I did my pullups, this made me glimmer. Looking at this weight makes me think about fighting at 194lbs for CBJJ events. Hard work is visibly paying off, now its time to make my technique show when it counts. Also this game helps to improve your work ethic.
CUDDLE FUDDLE customized by Paulo Canabarro
